Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama Of Those Left Behind (25 page)

“And I want one cookie,” she said, money in hand.

The teenager made a face, bagged the cookies for each of them, and made change.

“More than one way to skin a cat,” Buck said.

They moseyed back to the gate. A few more passengers had gathered, and the woman at the counter announced that their plane had finally arrived. Buck and Chloe sat watching as the arriving passengers filed past, looking tired.

Buck carefully folded his cookie sack and laid it in his carryon bag. “I’ll be on a plane to New York at eight tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll have this with coffee and think of you.”

“That’ll be seven o’clock my time,” Chloe said. “I’ll still be in bed, anticipating my cookie and dreaming of you.”

We’re still playing around the edges
, Buck thought.
Neither of us will say anything serious.

“I’ll wait till you’re up, then,” he said. “Tell me when you’re going to eat your cookie.”

Chloe studied the ceiling. “Hmm,” she mused. “When will you be in your most important, most formal meeting?”

“Probably sometime late morning at a big hotel in New York. Carpathia is coming for some joint announcement with Cardinal Mathews and other religious leaders.”

“Whenever that is, I’ll eat my cookie,” Chloe said. “And I dare you to eat yours then, too.”

“You’ll learn not to dare me.” Buck smiled, but he was only half kidding. “I know no fear.”

“Ha!” she said. “You’re afraid of the parking garage here, and you’re not even the one walking through it alone!”

Buck reached for her cookie sack.

“What’re you doing?” she said. “We’re not hungry, remember?”

“Just smell this,” he said. “Fragrance is such a memory enhancer.”

He opened her cookie sack and held it up to his face. “Mmm,” he said. “Cookie dough, chocolate, nuts, butter, you name it.”

He tilted it toward her, and she leaned to sniff it. “I do love that smell,” she said.

Buck reached with his other hand and cupped her cheek in his palm. She didn’t pull away but held his look. “Remember this moment,” he said. “I’ll be thinking of you while I’m gone.”

“Me too,” she said. “Now close that bag. That cookie has to stay fresh so the smell will remind me.”

Rayford awoke earlier than Chloe and padded down to the kitchen. He lifted the small cookie bag from the counter.
One left
, he thought, and was tempted. Instead he wrote Chloe a note. “Hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t resist.” On the back he wrote, “Just kidding,” and laid the note atop the bag. He had coffee and juice, then changed into his workout clothes and went for a run.

Buck sat in first class with Cardinal Mathews on the Cincy to New York morning flight. Mathews was in his late fifties, a beefy, lowly man with close-cropped black hair that appeared to be his own natural color. Only his collar evidenced his station. He carried an expensive briefcase and laptop computer, and Buck noticed from his ticket sleeve that he had checked four bags.

Mathews traveled with an aide, who merely deflected other people and said little. The aide moved to a seat in front of them so Buck could sit next to the archbishop. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a candidate for the papacy?” Buck began.

“So, we’re just going to jump right into it, are we?” Mathews said. “Don’t you like a little champagne in the morning?”

“No thanks.”

“Well, you won’t mind if I have a little pick-me-up.”

“Suit yourself. Tell me when you’re available to chat.”

Mathews’s aide heard the conversation and signaled the flight attendant, who immediately brought the cardinal a glass of champagne. “The usual?” she said.

“Thank you, Caryn,” he said, as if to an old friend. Apparently she was. When she was gone he whispered, “The Litewski family, from my first parish. Baptized her myself. She’s worked this flight for years. Now where were we?”

Buck did not respond. He knew the cardinal had heard and remembered the question. If he wanted it repeated for his own ego, he could repeat it himself.

“Oh, yes, you were wondering why I didn’t mention the papacy. I guess I thought everyone knew. Carpathia knew.”

I’ll bet he did
, Buck thought. _Probably engineered it. _”Is Carpathia hoping you’ll get it?”

“Off the record,” Mathews whispered, “there is no hoping anymore. We have the votes.”

“We?”

“That’s the editorial [_we. _]We, us, me, I have the votes. Understand?”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’ve been a member of the college of cardinals for more than ten years. I have never yet been surprised by a papal vote. You know what Nicolae calls me? He calls me P. M.”

Buck shrugged. “He calls you by your initials? Is there some significance?”

Mathews’s aide peeked back between the seats and shook his head.
So, I should know
, Buck surmised. But he had never been afraid of asking a dumb question.

“Pontifex Maximus,” Mathews beamed. “Supreme Pope.”

“Congratulations,” Buck said.

“Thank you, but I trust you know that Nicolae has much more in mind for my papacy than merely leadership of the Holy Roman Catholic Mother Church.”

“Tell me.”

“It’ll be announced later this morning, and if you do not quote me directly, I’ll give you the first shot at it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I like you.”

“You hardly know me.”

“But I know Nicolae.”

Buck sank in his seat. “And Nicolae likes me.”

“Exactly.”

“So this little ride-along was not really entirely the result of my legwork.”

“Ah, no,” Mathews said. “Carpathia endorsed you. He wants me to tell you everything. Just don’t make me look bad or self-serving for what I tell you.”

“Will the announcement make you appear that way?”

“No, because Carpathia himself will make that announcement.”

“I’m listening.”

“Secretary-General Carpathia’s office, Ms. Durham speaking.”

“Rayford Steele here.”

“Rayford! How are—”

“Let me get to the point, Hattie. I want to come early this afternoon so I can speak with you privately for a few minutes.”

“That would be wonderful, Captain Steele. I should tell you in advance, however, that I am seeing someone.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t intend it to be.”

“Will you have time?”

“Certainly. Secretary-General Carpathia can see you at four. Shall I look for you at three-thirty?”

Rayford hung up the phone as Chloe came into the kitchen, dressed for work at the church. She saw his note. “Oh, Dad! You didn’t!” she said, and he thought she was on the verge of tears. She grabbed the bag and shook it. A relieved look came over her as she turned the note over and laughed. “Grow up, Dad. For once in your life, act your age.”

He was getting ready to head to the airport and she for work when
CNN
broadcast a press conference live from the meeting of international religious leaders in New York. “Watch this, Dad,” she said. “Buck is there.”

Rayford set his carry-on bag on the floor and went to stand next to Chloe, who held a mug of coffee in both hands. The
CNN
correspondent intoned an explanation of what was to come. “We’re expecting a joint statement from the coalition of religious leaders and the United Nations, represented by new Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia. He seems the man of the hour here, having helped hammer out propositions and pulling together representatives of widely varying systems of belief. Since he has been in office, not a day has passed without some major development.

“Speculation here is that the religions of the world are going to make some fresh attempt at addressing global issues in a more cohesive and tolerant way than ever before. Ecumenism has failed in the past, but we’ll soon see if this time around there is some new wrinkle that can finally make it work. Stepping to the podium is Archbishop Peter Cardinal Mathews, prelate of the Cincinnati archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church and widely seen as a potential successor to Pope John
XXIV
who served only a controversial five months before being listed among the missing in the disappearances just weeks ago.”

The camera panned to the press conference platform, where more than two dozen religious leaders from around the world, all dressed in their native garb, jockeyed for position. As Archbishop Mathews worked his way through to the bank of microphones, Rayford heard Chloe squeal.

“There’s Buck, Dad! Look! Right there!”

She pointed to a reporter who was not in the crowd with the rest of the journalists but seemed to teeter on the back edge of the raised platform. Buck appeared to be trying to keep his balance. Twice he stepped down only to step back up again.

As Mathews droned on about international cooperation, Rayford and Chloe stared at Buck in the back corner. No one else would have even noticed him. “What’s he got?” Rayford said. “Is that some sort of a notebook or tape recorder?”

Chloe looked close and gasped. She ran to the kitchen and returned with her cookie sack. “It’s his cookie!” she said. “We’re going to eat our cookies at the same time!”

Rayford was lost, but he was sure glad he hadn’t eaten that cookie. “What—?” he began, but Chloe shushed him.

“It smells just like last night!” she said.

Rayford snorted. “Just what did last night smell like?” he said.

“Shhh!”

And sure enough, as they watched, Buck quickly and quietly reached into his little sack, surreptitiously and almost invisibly slid out the cookie, put it to his mouth, and took a bite. Chloe matched him gesture for gesture, and Rayford noticed she was smiling and crying at the same time.

“You’ve got it bad,” he said, and he left for the airport.

Buck had no idea whether his little antic had been seen by anyone, let alone Chloe Steele. What was this girl doing to him? He had somehow gone from international star journalist to love-struck romantic doing silly things for attention. But, he hoped, not too much attention. Few people ever noticed anyone on the edge of a TV shot. For all he knew, Chloe could have been watching and not have seen him at all.

More important than his efforts was the major story that broke from what might otherwise have been labeled a typical international confab. Somehow Nicolae Carpathia, either by promising support for Mathews’s papacy or by his uncanny ability to charm anyone, had gotten these religious leaders to produce a proposition of incredible significance.

They were announcing not only an effort to cooperate and be more tolerant of each other but also the formation of an entirely new religion, one that would incorporate the tenets of all.

“And lest that sound impossible to the devout members of each of our sects,” Mathews said, “we are all, every one of us, in total unanimity. Our religions themselves have caused as much division and bloodshed around the world as any government, army, or weapon. From this day forward we will unite under the banner of the Global Community Faith. Our logo will contain sacred symbols from religions that represent all, and from here on will encompass all. Whether we believe God is a real person or merely a concept, God is in all and above all and around all. God is in us. God is us. We are God.”

When the floor was opened to questions, many astute religion editors zeroed in. “What happens to the leadership of, say, Roman Catholicism? Will there be the need for a pope?”

“We will elect a pope,” Mathews said. “And we expect that other major religions will continue to appoint leaders in their usual cycles. But these leaders will serve the Global Community Faith and be expected to maintain the loyalty and devotion of their parishioners to the larger cause.”

“Is there one major tenet you all agree on?”

This was met with laughter by the participants. Mathews called on a Rastafarian to answer. Through an interpreter he said, “We believe two things concretely. First, in the basic goodness of humankind. Second, that the disappearances were a religious cleansing. Some religions saw many disappear. Others saw very few. Many saw none. But the fact that many were left from each proves that none was better than the other. We will be tolerant of all, believing that the best of us remain.”

Buck moved around to the front and raised his hand. “Cameron Williams, _ Global Weekly_,” he said. “Follow-up question for the gentleman at the microphone or Mathews or whomever. How does this tenet of the basic goodness of humankind jibe with the idea that the bad people have been winnowed out? How did they miss possessing this basic goodness?”

No one moved to answer. The Rastafarian looked to Mathews, who stared blankly at Buck, clearly not wishing to act upset but also wanting to communicate that he felt ambushed.

Mathews finally took the microphone. “We are not here to debate theology,” he said. “I happen to be one of those who believes that the disappearances constituted a cleansing, and that the basic goodness of humankind is the common denominator of those who remain. And this basic goodness is found in greater measure in no one other than United Nations Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia. Welcome him, please!”

The platform erupted with religious leaders cheering.

Some of the press clapped, and for the first time Buck became aware of a huge public contingent behind the press. Due to the spotlights, he had not seen them from the platform, and he had not heard them until Carpathia appeared.

Carpathia was his typical masterful self, giving all the credit to the leadership of the ecumenical body and endorsing this “historic, perfect idea, whose time is long overdue.”

He took a few questions, including what would happen to the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. “That, I am happy to say, will proceed. As many of you know, much money has been donated to this cause for decades, and some prefabrication of the temple in other sites has been underway for years. Once the reconstruction begins, completion should be without delay.”

“But what happens to the Islamic Dome of the Rock?”

“I am so glad you asked that question,” Carpathia said, and Buck wondered if he hadn’t planted it. “Our Muslim brothers have agreed to move not only the shrine but also the sacred section of the rock to New Babylon, freeing the Jews to rebuild their temple on what they believe is the original site.